Saving Seafood

New Bedford, Mass. waterfront development sparks optimism — and skepticism

October 7, 2015 — Could the former NStar site be home to the East Coast’s first flume tank for fisheries, a New Bedford Harbor Hotel or a state-of-the-art center and tech museum? What if State Pier had retail shops mixed in with a busy farmers and fish market to draw in tourists?

These ideas were among those floated at a public meeting Wednesday night on the future of New Bedford’s waterfront as part of a master planning process that is designed to help residents envision where growth should happen.

While there were some positive ideas, planners also were met with skepticism as some residents said they doubted progress would be made.

The planning process began last fall and will culminate at the end of this year with draft plans followed by several public meetings and approvals at the city level.

“This whole process is about the whole waterfront from Coggeshall Street to Cove Street. It is a plan that is about the future vision of the waterfront,” said Ed Anthes-Washburn, acting port director for the Harbor Development Commission.

The public meeting was the second of two meetings following a year’s worth of planning and public interviews along the waterfront by a waterfront steering committee and representatives of Boston consulting firm Sasaki Associates.

While residents and community members filled the conference room at the Fairfield Inn & Suites’ Waypoint Event Center to weigh in on the future of the waterfront, there was clearly skepticism. Many people said they already considered the prospects of development unlikely, questioned where money would come from and others speculated that the entire process was a Nov. 3 election stunt.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Commissioner names conduit to state, federal fishery officials

October 8, 2015 — State Fish & Game Commissioner George Peterson wasn’t able to land his first choice as the new director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries back in July, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t able to find a state position for his preferred candidate.

Peterson, in Gloucester for Thursday’s meeting of the state Marine Fisheries Commission, announced Gov. Charlie Baker has given him the green light to create a new position — special assistant to the commissioner’s office for marine fisheries issues — and place Douglas Christel in that new job.

“He will report directly to me,” Peterson said of Christel, who is set to begin work in his new job during the first week of November. “I believe he will be an asset to this agency [DMF] and this commission.”

Peterson said Christel, a longtime National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries staffer and Peterson’s first choice to succeed Paul Diodati as director of DMF, will serve as a conduit of information from various elements in the state’s marine fishery regulatory and scientific apparatus — as well as their federal counterparts — to enable Peterson, Secretary for the Environment Daniel Sieger and Baker to formulate more informed policy.

“For instance, the governor has raised some questions about the science being used to perform the stock assessments,” Peterson said. “We see this as a way of helping get new information into the system.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

GLOUCESTER DAILY TIMES: Mixed messages for the fishing industry

October 5, 2015 — Last week brought a mix of news for the region’s fishermen, some of it straight-out bad, some offering a glimmer of hope for the future of one of New England’s oldest industries.

We’ll start with the bad news — the state’s rejection of the so-called “Gloucester Plan” for distributing the last batch of U.S. fishery disaster aid to Massachusetts fishermen with federal permits.

The local plan would have shared the remaining $6 million and $7 million of federal among fishermen with federal permits who landed at least 20,000 pounds of groundfish in any season between 2012 and 2014. That plan would have ensured the money went to the boats most affective by the closing of large swaths of the North Atlantic to fishing.

Instead, the stead opted for a plan with much lower standards.

Read the editorial from the Gloucester Daily Times

Legislator: Fed money for fish study a good sign

October 2, 2015 — BOSTON — One of the Legislature’s top fishing advocates has taken encouragement from the federal government approving funding for an industry survey of cod stocks.

As part of $6.9 million in federal disaster relief, the National Marine Fisheries Service approved federal funds for an industry-based survey of Gulf of Maine cod, a species whose apparent decimation led to drastic reductions in catch limits and a fisheries disaster declaration.

Gov. Charlie Baker and other Massachusetts elected officials have criticized federal fishery regulators for refusing to consider alternative scientific methods for estimating fish stocks. The School for Marine Science and Technology at UMass Dartmouth has developed new methods for assessing sea life.

Sen. Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester Republican, said he was encouraged that the industry study was included in the grant award approved by federal fishery regulators.

“It offers me a sign of hope that they will begin to take seriously collaborative research and consider the independent efforts to try to give us a better understanding of what’s happening with cod stocks,” Tarr told the News Service.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries on Thursday announced the award, which will send most of a $6.7 million pot toward direct aid for fishermen and use another $200,000 to fund the administration of a program to buy back fishing licenses, which would be industry-funded, according to the state. The division will work on developing a proposal for a buyback program, and will work on helping fishermen obtain experimental federal permits for small-mesh nets.

Read the full story at New Bedford Standard – Times

 

 

Disbursement of Groundfish Disaster Funds (Bin 3)

October 1, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The final installment of groundfish fishery disaster aid, commonly known as Bin 3, has been released to four of the affected states (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut) by NOAA Fisheries. Bin 3 represents the final third of $32.8 million available to assist the groundfish industry. This action allows the states to move forward with the development of individual spend plans for economic assistance to include direct aid to permit holders and crew.  

For more information on the spend plans, contact:

Maine: Meredith Mendelson (207) 624-6553 

New Hampshire: Cheri Patterson (603) 868-1095

Massachusetts: Melanie Griffin (617) 626-1528

Connecticut: David Simpson (860) 434-6043 

New York and Rhode Island continue to work with NOAA Fisheries to develop and complete grant applications to benefit affected fishers and their families.

More information is available on our website.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel, Regional Office, at 978-281-6175 or Jennifer.Goebel@noaa.gov.

Credit: NOAA

 

MASSACHUSETTS: State won’t follow Gloucester fishery aid plan

October 1, 2015 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — With one day to spare before the grant period is set to begin, the state finally released details on its plan to distribute the final portion of federal fishery disaster aid to Massachusetts fishermen with federal permits.

It is not the so-called “Gloucester Plan” that would have spread between $6 million and $7 million to federally permitted fishermen who landed at least 20,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the fishing seasons 2012 to 2014.

Instead, according to Katie Gronendyke, spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the state will divide the federal assistance among fishermen with a Massachusetts homeport as of April 30, 2015, who either landed at least 10,000 pounds of groundfish in any fishing season between 2012 and 2014 or had an observer aboard their vessel for at least one groundfish trip in 2014.

The plan, according to Gronendyke, will “better target active fishermen in the groundfishery throughout the Commonwealth.”

The full grant of $6.9 million contained in the third phase, or Bin 3, of federal funding being funneled through the state is the final installment of the roughly $21 million in federal fishery disaster funds designated for Massachusetts from the $75 million appropriated by Congress in January 2014.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries, Gronendyke said, is in the process of identifying qualified recipients by auditing federal catch and trip data.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Cape Cod fleet hopes for financial aid

September 29, 2015 — The big “bin” of cash, doled out by Congress in September 2012, when they declared the New England groundfish fishery a disaster, is about to be emptied of the last nickels and dimes.

It wasn’t a hurricane or brutal snowstorm that caused the disaster, it was a lack of cod. Quotas for the Cape’s namesake fish were slashed 80 percent in the Gulf of Maine and 61 percent for Georges Bank.

A total of $32.8 million was set aside for the New England fishery, with $11 million reserved for future use and $14.6 million sent to Massachusetts for distribution.

“The first round was money distributed by the federal government to permit holders who caught 5,000 pounds of ground fish in either 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013,” explained Claire Fitzgerald, policy analyst for the Chatham-based Cape Cod Commercial Fisherman’s Alliance.
In round one (or bin one) $6.3 million of Massachusetts’ share of the award was parceled out to 194 ground fish permit holders who qualified; $32,463 apiece. Unfortunately, in the case of the Fisheries Alliance, less than half of the two dozen boats in their Fixed Gear Sector qualified.

Read the full story from The Cape Codder

MASSACHUSETTS: Working Waterfront Festival wraps up another successful year in New Bedford

September 27, 2015 — NEW BEDFORD — The smell of fried clams and scallops permeates the air as the crisp early autumn wind wisps the scent onward to every corner of Pier 3, as people listen to music, view creations from artisans, and witness how to shuck a scallop – which can mean only one thing.

The 12th annual Working Waterfront Festival is in full swing at New Bedford Harbor.

Since it’s inception in 2004, the two-day festival in late September brings in thousands of locals throughout SouthCoast in celebration of the vibrant fishing industry and those who make it work.

“We wanted people and locals to understand the fishing industry,” said Kirsten Bendiksen, one of the founders of the festival.

“Everyone sees the bridge go up,” says Bendiksen of the New Bedford/Fairhaven Bridge. “They know when the bridge goes up, the fishing vessels go out, but they don’t know how they get their catch.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Scallop Fest draws visitors by the busload

September 18, 2015 — FALMOUTH, Mass. — Yellow school buses weren’t the only ones on the road Friday afternoon, as tour groups from throughout Massachusetts and neighboring states rolled their way to the 46th annual Scallop Fest.

About 50,000 people were expected to descend upon the Cape Cod Fairgrounds to enjoy 6,000 pounds of deep-fried scallops Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, said Marie Oliva, the CEO and president of the Cape Cod Canal Region Chamber of Commerce.

The Scallop Fest, which has been named one of the Top 100 bus tours in the United States five times by the American Bus Association, had 48 scheduled bus groups for the weekend, Oliva added.

Early Friday afternoon, about a half dozen large tour buses were parked just outside the festival, along with a handful of smaller ones. Most of the attendees were senior citizen groups.

Denise Paquette has been driving buses for 21 years. During her early driving days she would bring her camera for sightseeing. Now, the festival veteran, who estimates she’s been to Scallop Fest about 17 times, says she’s seen everything, and doesn’t need her camera.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times